Kristen Lester

Kristen Lester is the head of story at Pixar Animation Studios. She works as a director, storyboard and visual development artist, and character designer. Lester also writes and works in color scripting, environment design, and prop design.

Lester wrote and directed her first animated short with the award-winning "Purl," a timely and topical short inspired by Lester’s challenging journey in animation. The short centers on a hardworking and open-hearted ball of yarn who takes a job at a fast-paced, male-centric company, aptly named B.R.O. Capital. The first ball of yarn to work at the company, Purl finds herself excluded and discriminated against by her coworkers. Considering changing her personality and appearance to fit in with the guys, Purl ultimately realizes that doing so would be doing a disservice to herself, and all other employees who stand out as different from the established norm.

With "Purl," Lester wanted to tap into the earlier days of her career, when change within the industry had yet to come. The first Pixar short made as part of the SparkShorts program—a series of independent animated shorts, made on a limited budget over the course of six months, created with the intention of spotlighting new storytellers—Purl was a challenge for Lester to make, largely due to the limitations she had faced with career growth in the past, and the way in which she’d been conditioned to think.

Lester also served as Head of Story on Pixar's "Soul", which was released in 2020.